


perihelion

by eldritchIdeologist



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Intimacy, Other, its a bunch of poetic mumbo jumbo imma be real, no betaing we die like men, set at the hotel in the final resting place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 04:53:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20942582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritchIdeologist/pseuds/eldritchIdeologist
Summary: There are no words. It is slow, and then it is fast, and now it is slow again. It’s a celebration of a life that they have been extraordinarily lucky to keep. This blood in their veins, this beating of their hearts, everything in high definition and surround sound. Isn’t it wonderful?





	perihelion

**Author's Note:**

> [takes swig of wine] we're yearning tonight folks  
this is not proofread bc im gay and i do what i want

It's like nothing else. There in the touch of his fingers on scarred skin; it is incomparable, the warm breath into a warm shoulder, the warm red nightlight of the city. It is poetry - if Juno were a poet, maybe he could describe it. As it is, he is out of breath and halfway incoherent.

Peter Nureyev knows exactly how to touch. He knows the details of things; he knows the intricacies of Juno’s skin the way Juno doubts he himself knows them, and it is a lovely thing. Peter knows the pressure at the dip of Juno’s waist, he knows the electricity that liquefies Juno’s spine; he knows, with those lips of his, the sound of whispered prayers because he has stolen them from the tip of Juno’s tongue. Incomprehensible; this is the way it is with humans, where you can only make sense of it after the fact and from the outside. 

So let us be the voyeur, then. Let us leave our shame at the door and look here at the bite mark on Juno’s shoulder, look here at the scratches on his back. They do not hurt; on the contrary, it’s the kind of burn that’s molten in your throat and impossible to weigh in the pit of you. That is where Peter is. In the pit of him. In the core of Juno; he is the sky and the ground and the horizon where they meet, and in this darklit hotel room, he is all that matters. 

Here is the thing: they have survived. Nobody will ever know this, but they are heroes, too. Yes, they are saviours. In the aftermath of the saving, they deserve their pleasure.

So, here. The shudder-breath in the exhale, Juno and every oxygen molecule in his lungs, and every cell in his body. The trembling fingers and Peter there, below him, with his black halo of hair and his bright eyes. He is a thief, so he takes what he likes - now, he takes everything from Juno and gives it back double. Perhaps he is being a bad thief. Perhaps he is in love.

“Nureyev,” Juno murmurs, for lack of anything else to say but wanting to say something regardless. There is no way to articulate the buildup in him, so he will settle for a name, and it is just as good. 

“Yes, Juno,” Peter says - not an urge to continue, no, but an acknowledgement;  _ yes, Juno, I’m here. Yes, Juno, yes, me too. Yes, I want this, I have never wanted anything like I want this. Yes.  _ And Juno nods, because he gets it. 

“C’mere.” His voice is soft and his hand is on Peter’s cheek, and for once Juno doesn’t think too much about it. He kisses him, this eternal thing in the space between them, this nuclear fusion feeling, and he has lost an eye but it doesn’t bother him anymore. All the aches in his body don’t bother him anymore, not now. They will, later, they’ll form an orderly line and speak their names and make him know them, but now they are silent because Peter has buried his bruised fingers in Juno’s dirty hair and is treating him like the most precious thing he’s ever held. 

How do we get to the bite mark, to the scratches? Hold on, give it a minute. We’ll get there. First, it is this hiding in the darkness, it is the way the light falls on Peter’s face, painting in sfumato. Painting not in concrete shapes but in suggestions; the only solid thing about him is the press of his lips against Juno’s and his warm hands desperate in unbuttoning Juno’s shirt. Juno’s not far behind; if he could see himself from the outside, he would see the overexposed polaroid look on his face, would see his own hands disappear under Peter’s shirt and up and up, would see the creeping of light and shadows on a long spine. Oh, but it is the holiest thing, and Peter is not a saint but he could be, he must be, Juno would believe it. 

His mouth is hungry and it has made its way to Juno’s throat, to the vulnerable part of him there.  _ Go for the jugular,  _ they say, and this isn’t what they mean, but Peter has never been one for rules. So listen here - the noise that Juno makes, this not-noise kind of noise, this whimper-breath at the back of the throat kind of noise, it is the only thing Peter wants to listen to. This is the buildup, Peter is the violinist, this is the only performance that matters. Juno, here, his head bent back and his eyes shut, the strung out instrument. 

But he isn’t idle long. He never is; it’s in his nature to never stay static, never be still, so he isn’t. He locks Peter in place with a look and they are shirtless and impatient, and Peter will give him anything he asks for, anything. Anything now, anything forever,  _ please,  _ when Juno’s fingers blaze a trail across his skin and disappear under his belt. 

Let’s talk about hands. Let’s zoom in, here, where the hands are. Where Juno’s are strong and unwavering, sharpshooter’s hands, fighter’s hands, where they know where they are going without Juno having to give it a thought. Experienced hands, is what they are; Peter grabs Juno’s free one and winds their fingers together, presses scarred knuckles to his mouth.  _ Oh,  _ Juno thinks,  _ oh, you’re just as desperate as me,  _ and quietly, just to himself,  _ oh, I love you,  _ and he doesn’t say it and he doesn’t think it anymore but he leans into a kiss again. Silence it, that will work, even if it makes no sound and needs no breath and burns without a flame or spark to start it, silence it. Smother it in his lips, in the core of him, maybe he will understand without you having to say anything, you poor thing. (He doesn’t know, yet, he doesn’t know what is coming. He doesn’t know the firebright burn of Peter Nureyev the way he thinks he does.)

Peter’s hands are slender and certain, pianist’s hands, musician’s hands. Artist’s hands, if you will, because thievery is an art form the way he does it. Look at his hands, rough now from the past few weeks, the small cuts and bruises that will heal and disappear later, the texture of his fingertips at Juno’s thighs. When a sculptor makes a sculpture, it is an act of love; the palm trails around the curve and finds the secret hidden place, molds it into something beautiful. A sigh, perhaps, a wounded pleasured kind of sigh. 

“Come  _ on, _ ” Juno growls, or maybe whines, or maybe something else altogether, but it is irrelevant because he has no patience. He turns over so Peter is above him, now, and sinks into the soft mattress of the hotel bed, and sinks into the taste of a warm mouth on his. Slick, and hot, and dangerously sweet, this tongue against his, this magma feeling in his jaw. “C’mon, Peter.” 

Peter is helpless. He is helpless and incompetent in the face of this, fumbling like a child; his heart has stumbled and fallen and found itself somewhere entirely new, has found itself called  _ Peter _ like it matters. His soul, where it will make a home of Juno’s touch. 

“Yes,” he says, because it is the only thing he knows how to say. There is nothing of the pretense, nothing of the act; there is only himself here now. It’s what Juno deserves. Nothing less than Peter Nureyev, nothing less than everything genuine, Juno with his sharp unfaltering honesty. He deserves a Peter that wears his bleeding heart on his bleeding red sleeve. 

But enough of that. The details here are irrelevant, you know the rest. It is nothing more than the sweat on their skin and the firing of their nerves, and it is over far too quickly, the first time. And here is Juno with the bite on his shoulder, and here are the scratches on his back; and here is Peter with fingerprints etched into his hips, his waist, his shoulders. Here is the wind-down, the cool-off, the slow and lazy river way of their bodies wound around each other. They aren’t done yet; they are like vices, holding onto each other, in the knowledge that they can take their time now that the desperation has worn off. 

There are no words. It is slow, and then it is fast, and now it is slow again. It’s a celebration of a life that they have been extraordinarily lucky to keep. This blood in their veins, this beating of their hearts, everything in high definition and surround sound. Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it lovely? 

Allow me to explain: at perihelion, a planet is at the closest point in its orbit to its star. It is the hottest point in the orbit; the crescendo of a periodic wave. And isn’t it lovely? To go and come back to warmth like this, to bask in this glow. In the hotel bed, where Juno is the planet and Peter is the Sun, isn’t it wonderful to be at perihelion? To then take the minutes to even out their breaths (to reach aphelion, perhaps), and then to come right back again. Their bodies in these inevitable orbits are just one part of the picture; their hearts are there too, in blinding colour. Aligned, perhaps, like a magnet in a magnetic field. 

Often, we understand very little about ourselves, and even less about the universe; they understand nothing except for everything in perfect clarity. Juno can’t read minds anymore, but he doesn’t need to. He  _ knows _ the smile on Peter’s lips, he knows it is for him, he knows it speaks a thousand words. He knows. He is the sun and Peter is the planet. 

“Nureyev--” Juno starts, but there are tantalizing lips on his and a forehead against his own. 

“No, no,” Peter murmurs, “call me Peter. Please.” 

He is suave in anything but this, Juno can see, because his voice is quiet and the plea is without edge, without threat. It is a plea only, and Juno cannot refuse. 

“ _ Peter,”  _ he whispers on a swallow, so much more pronounced now when they are in this middle space, and Peter closes his eyes and smiles and loses his breath and is in love. “Let me…” Juno doesn’t have a clue how to finish his sentence, but Peter nods regardless. So Juno brings him into a languid kiss and decides to make them both forget anything that isn’t in this bed in this moment. 

It is Peter then in the pillows, and Juno is solid on top of him, solid everywhere except at the mouth where he is melting, except where they are joined together where he is plasma. Their hands hold onto each other like it’s the last thing they will ever do; and listen to the sea, to the waves, the rhythm of the  _ in _ and  _ out _ . The metronome of their movement and the sweat and sound of it, obscene, and Peter cannot be quiet. Juno is - he is a breathless thing. But Peter isn’t. Peter seems to have found all his words and decided to let them out in this one moment, because he is begging.

Juno moves and all he can hear, all he can care about, is _ah, Juno, Juno, please, _like it’s too much. _Oh, my darling, _followed then by _yes, yes, like that, please, _and the abrupt cut-off by a gasp. The praises: _god, you’re gorgeous, Juno, do you even know, like this, you’re gorgeous, do you know._ _Look at you, my-- look at you, fuck, you’re so good to me. _Juno eats it up and buries his face in Peter’s neck and leaves a string of bruises. He is not a poet, but neither is Peter, and yet this thing here Juno thinks he’d like to see immortalised. 

And then the apex. And then later when they’ve come around again Peter looms above him, monumental and divine, hands wandering, and Juno is enraptured until they get tangled in the sheets and fall off the bed. There is nothing of gods or saints, then; there is only laughter. Juno is the first to pick himself up off the floor and he extends a hand to bring Peter up too, and then the momentum takes them back onto the mattress still laughing. It’s unstoppable, then, the mood has changed; they find each other giggling and teasing and light. It’s easier, this way, when Juno says  _ don’t go falling off again, Peter,  _ and puts a hand at the nape of his neck to bring him into a smiling kiss. It is nothing big; it is just the two of them in a dark hotel room, with all the life in the world at their hands.  _ Let me see you,  _ Peter says between one kiss and the next, and Juno, for once, obliges without arguing. 

This is how it goes. There is no story in the world that follows a clear path, no story without repetition. There is no discovery without multiple trials, without changing it up every time to see what gives. This is how it goes: into the small hours of the night, in the space between their fingertips, in the bump of their noses together. Slow, and fast, and slow, and laughing. Lazy, at the end, and tired. Muted, at the end.

Muted, when Peter says,  _ call me a fool if you like.  _ But that is how it goes, isn’t it? The Universe spins itself into oblivion, eventually; the stars reach a glorious end without a sound, the planet you are standing on will be dust, will be particles so small you need infrared light to see them. Every story in the world has its ups and downs and its winding loops and its peaks and valleys, and it is only sad when it ends. So long as it does not end, there is nothing to be sad about. So let us rewind a bit, and here is the solution:

They are smiling, small and sated and by no means satisfied but content, for now, at least, and Juno’s drawing featherlight figure eights in Peter’s shoulder. Peter’s nose is buried in Juno’s hair, and he breathes, for a moment, and then he turns to look up to the ceiling and makes a face.

“I think… it might be best if we took a shower.” Juno snorts and nods against Peter’s chest. He can hear his heartbeat.

“Yeah, probably. Y’think it’s big enough for two?”

Peter’s pleased-cat chuckle. “I like the way you think, Juno. Shall we?” 

“Mm.” Leaving a kind of comfort for a different kind of comfort; happiness, if Juno allows himself to think it. So how does it go? It goes like this: a bed, a shower, city light streaming in through a window, the quiet distant sound of traffic lulling you to sleep. Close the book before you reach the final chapter, don’t watch the final scene, let’s end here in the middle. Let’s close the door to the hotel room. Enough of the voyeur, pick your shame back up. The rest is for them.


End file.
